Spectrar Ghost wrote:
(...)
I fully support the ability for a player to take titan allies and not pe penalized for it from a gameplay perspective. I think most would agree that the army should retain the flexibility to go to battle without those allies effectively, as well. Flexibility is what drives a successful EA list. That comes from internal balance, and the ability to have more than one unit perform a given role. Especially where allies are involved.
I thought I acknowledged the need for internal balance, but where I disagree is that I don't think in this particular list, that it should be a design goal to be able to do anything titans can do without titans. I can understand the rationale in a marine or IG list setting, but actually skitarii are supposed to be part of titan legions (at least that's how it work in Titanicus), they are not a different force structure, so while I understand we might put titans in the "allies" part of the list for list construction purpose (point spent limitation), I think the term "ally" is in fact misleading and actually wrong from a background oriented point of view.
Titan legion are not a separate force from the skitarii force, skitarii are infantry and tanks support that work as an integral part of a titan legion.
And in fact, I think the fluff actually IS that every FW indeed has a titan legion, at least it was so. Each FW raised a Titan Legion for its defence, and the imperium can ask the AM to lend them some of their military power to defend their common cause. I don't know if that "fluff"* has been retconed since then, but the AdMech originally created at least small TL to defend each new FW they established, although those were smaller and had a bit less prestige until years enabled them to grow and conflicts to earn some more glory for themselves.
After all, even Ad-mech tied agriculture world get nice Knights...
*I actually hate that word, but it IS faster and less repetitive to type than "background setting" or "fictional universe context"